Higglers in Kingston

Winnifred Brown-Glaude

Description

Making a living in the Caribbean requires resourcefulness and even a willingness to circumvent the law. Women of color in Jamaica encounter bureaucratic mazes, neighborhood territoriality, and ingrained racial and cultural prejudices. For them, it requires nothing less than a herculean effort to realize their entrepreneurial dreams.

In Higglers in Kingston, Winnifred Brown-Glaude puts the reader on the ground in frenetic urban Kingston, the capital and largest city in Jamaica. She explores the lives of informal market laborers, called "higglers," across the city as they navigate a corrupt and inaccessible "official" Jamaican economy. But rather than focus merely on the present-day situation, she contextualizes how Jamaica arrived at this point, delving deep into the island's history as a former colony, a home to slaves and masters alike, and an eventual nation of competing and conflicted racial sectors.

Higglers in Kingston weaves together contemporary ethnography, economic history, and sociology of race to address a broad audience of readers on a crucial economic and cultural center.

Sujets

• Women's Studies
• Caribbean Studies
• West Indies
• Histoire
• Ethnography
• Economics
• Caribbean
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 08 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826501905
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

HIGGLERS in KINGSTON
HIGGLERS in KINGSTON
Women’s Informal Work in Jamaica
WINNIFRED
BROWN-GLAUDE
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS
Nashville, Tennessee
© 2011 by Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville, Tennessee 37235
All rights reserved
First printing 2011
First paperback printing 2020
An abridged version of Chapter 6 , titled “Spreading Like a Dis/ease? Afro-Jamaican Higglers and the Dynamics of Race/Color, Class, and Gender,” appears in Lived Experiences of Public Consumption: Encounters with Value in Marketplaces on Five Continents , ed. Daniel Cook (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown-Glaude, Winnifred R., 1966–
Higglers in Kingston : women’s informal work in Jamaica / Winnifred Brown-Glaude.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8265-1765-4 (cloth edition : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8265-1766-1 (paperback edition : alk. paper) 1. Street vendors—Jamaica—Kingston. 2. Women merchants—Jamaica—Kingston. 3. Social status—Jamaica—Kingston. 4. Small business—Jamaica—Kingston. 5. Informal sector (Economics)—Jamaica—Kingston. 6. Women’s studies—Jamaica—Kingston. I. Title. HF5459.J25B76 2011
331.4—dc22
2010042223
In loving memory of Virginette Wilhelmina Brown (May 3, 1909–December 21, 2005)
Walk good, Miss Coolie!
Contents
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION: Assessing the “Whole of Informality”
1. Intersectionality and the Politics of Embodiment
2. Higglering: A Woman’s Domain?
3. “Bait of Satan”? Representations of Sunday/Negro Markets and Higglering from Slavery to Independence
4. “Natural Rebels” or Just Plain Nuisances? Representations of Higglers from Slavery to Independence
5. Higgler, ICI, Businesswoman: What’s in a Name?
6. Dirty and Dis/eased: Bodies, Public Space, and Afro-Jamaican Higglers
CONCLUSION: Understanding the Nuances of Informality
APPENDIX: List of Higglers Interviewed
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
From the time I was a little girl growing up in Jamaica, higglers have had a special place in my heart. On Christmas mornings, I always looked forward to going to the Christmas market, where the streets of downtown Kingston would be lined with higglers selling a wide variety of toys. I remember walking along the streets holding my father’s hand and making the difficult choice of which toy I wanted. In the mind of a six-year-old, these women were not only special, they were magical, because they had intimate connections with Santa Claus. But even then, I knew that not everyone saw these women as special; there were times they were described negatively. These descriptions were confusing to me. I mean, how could these women, my Santa’s helpers, be so bad?
Although it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact genesis of a scholarly project, higglers have been on my mind for quite some time. My interest in them, however, would have remained a loose set of questions if it were not for the wise counsel and prodigious guidance of a very special host of people. Howard Winant has been both a patient and supportive advisor and a friend. I am truly thankful for his support and willingness to accommodate me in my difficult choice to complete my graduate work while living with my family in Maine. The life of a graduate student is always difficult, in my case compounded by my choice to keep my family together. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Sherri Grasmuck, Kevin Delaney, Paget Henry, and Howard Winant for working with me by phone, e-mail, and regular mail to make this project a reality. Thank you all for asking difficult questions and pushing me to think about these women’s experiences in new ways. Most of all, this project would not be possible without the voices of the market women and ICIs (informal commercial importers) at the Papine Market, and the Constant Spring and People’s Arcades. I truly appreciate you sharing your time with me and showing me how to “make a way out of no way.”
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship in Women’s Studies and the Temple University Research Grant provided research funding for this project. The Rutgers University Presidential Post-Doctoral Fellowship, the Rutgers University Institute for Research on Women Faculty Seminar, the Ford Foundation’s Emerging Voices in Caribbean Women Studies Faculty Summer Research Grant, and the Princeton Research Fellowship in Sociology all provided financial and intellectual support. I thank all my colleagues in these seminars for reading versions of my chapters and providing invaluable suggestions.
So many people have contributed to the development of this project. I offer my sincere thanks to Patricia Mohammed and Mitch Duneier for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of the book. I also thank Patricia Mohammed for helping me locate some of the images. I am thankful to the countless librarians, museum curators, and scholars whose assistance and suggestions were invaluable. I am grateful for the support of my editor, Eli Bortz, at Vanderbilt University Press. I especially want to thank the two anonymous readers, whose insightful comments have helped strengthen the book tremendously. I thank them for their insights and take full responsibility for the errors and failures of this book.
My sister friends have sustained me throughout this journey. Thank you, Patricia Saunders (University of Miami), for helping me consider, in the very early stages of writing, the importance of space. More importantly, thank you for the many times you have talked me off the ledge. Michelle Rowley (University of Maryland), thank you for pushing me to think about Caribbean feminism and the particular experiences of Caribbean women. I look forward to reading your book. Rhonda Frederick (Boston College), thank you for your support and faith in me. You are such a beautiful person and brilliant scholar. Simone James Alexander (Seton Hall University), thank you for helping me negotiate this balancing act of family and career. You are a wonderful friend and role model.
My family has been my rock throughout this process. I am blessed to have the constant love and encouragement of my loving parents, Doreen and Wilfred Brown, as well as of my brothers and sister. I am also thankful to my family in Jamaica, who supported me throughout my fieldwork. I especially thank my relatives Joyce and Neville Rhone for opening up their home and supporting me throughout some difficult moments in the field. I am also thankful to Jean Rhone for introducing me to the market women in Papine. I thank my uncle, Donald (Bill) Brown, for always making himself available to me when I needed him. But most of all, I am thankful for the countless evenings I sat on the verandah in Kingston recounting my days in the field with my grandmother, Miss Coolie, as we called her. She is in a better place now, and those precious moments will always be in my heart.
My journey through this project, however, would not have been possible without the unconditional love and support of my life partner—Eddie Glaude. Thank you for your incredible patience throughout this long process, and for reading and commenting on so many versions of this book. I especially thank you for your unwavering confidence in my intellect even in those moments when I had my doubts. And finally, I must offer a special thanks to my son, Langston. You have grown with me throughout this process. I look at you and I cannot believe how far we both have come. It is because of you that each moment of my day is worth living. Thank you for making Mommy want to be a better person.
HIGGLERS IN KINGSTON
INTRODUCTION
Assessing the “Whole of Informality”
In a small rural village in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, Miss Virginette, an Afro-Jamaican market woman, awakens before dawn. 1 It is Saturday morning, market day. She gets dressed, takes a moment to drink some tea, then begins to gather her baskets for the long trip ahead of her. She needs to catch the 5:00 a.m. bus to the city of Kingston. She must hurry. She calls out to her son, who will carry her baskets to the bus stop at the bottom of the hill. As they step out into her front yard, Miss Virginette smells the dampness of the red earth beneath her feet. This smell brings back memories of countless mornings she accompanied her mother and grandmother on this very journey as a child.
When the bus arrives, fifteen minutes behind schedule, Miss Virginette quickly finds a seat as her son packs her baskets onto the back of the bus. Once he sees that his mother is properly seated, her son says his goodbyes and returns home. The bus trip is long and extremely uncomfortable—even dangerous—but Miss Virginette knows she must make this trip in order to support her family. 2 When she finally arrives at the Papine Market in Kingston, Miss Virginette secures her money in the deep pockets of her apron, gathers her baskets, and with the help of a young boy carries them to her stall in the marketplace.
Meanwhile, Miss Carida, an Afro-Jamaican informal commercial importer (ICI), steps out of her husband’s car in front of the Constant Spring Arcade, also in Kingston, and unloads some boxes from the trunk. It has been a week since she’s been away overseas and she is still experiencing jet lag from the eighteen-hour flight from China. As she and her husband carry some boxes to her stall, Miss Carida still can’t believe her good fortune. Her favorite store in Quanzhou was having a blow-out sale, which allowed her to purchase twice as many pairs of school shoes as she had anticipated. She knows they will sell easily, as the new school year is quickly approaching and paren